


Weeping Wall

by BakerStreetMuse



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: M/M, Musicians, Prompt Fill, The Chase, composer au, early 19th century europe, sing us a song you're the piano man
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-08-29
Updated: 2014-09-06
Packaged: 2018-02-15 07:20:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,838
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2220468
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BakerStreetMuse/pseuds/BakerStreetMuse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Prompt: World famous pianist Will Graham expertly plays hundreds of difficult pieces, but one evening he finds sheet music in an envelope wrapped in golden ribbon on his doorstep. He plays the piece, titled 'Wendigo's Medley' - He has never felt a piece touch his soul, to connect to his psyche so much as this. He goes seeking out the mystery composer. Who might that be? Hannibal Lecter, of course.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

In 1801 William Graham had left his home, the city of New Orleans, after a phantom. He had nothing to go on but a name and a piece of music, Hannibal Lecter and the Wendigo’s Medley, which played in his head as he chased the name across lakes, rivers, and the ocean itself, the medley playing in his head. 

He’d heard it only once, played by his own hands in his study back home, the notes on the page transforming to music of dizzying highs, hypnotic lows, and spiraling into a despair so deep and sweet he wept. 

He heard it in his dreams as the ship he sailed on left New York City, and he hummed it to himself as the boat docked in London. 

He wondered after the man who had written it and why he had named it as he had. He wondered after Hannibal Lecter. 

As he crossed the channel, chasing the man and the melody deeper in the continent, he began to wonder what he would say to him. 

"Have you heard of Hannibal Lecter?" 

He would ask again and again in what felt like a thousand languages. 

"He was just here." Sometimes they would say. "No." He heard more often. "I know someone who can point you that way." He often heard. Every red herring and dead end spurring him farther on, through archaic stone and bustling city and dense wood, hamlet to hamlet, farther and farther east. 

"He’s dangerous." They said in Italy. "He’s old blood. Noble blood. And bad blood." Will Graham was told in The Kingdom of Saxony. "Do not follow him." They said in Bohemia. 

Will Graham walked on, by horse, by foot, by boat, by any other means, walking the winter in Hungary clad in rags, starving, and with a few coins and the sheet music tucked under his cloak he soldiered on, half mad and humming the Wendigo’s Medley to himself. Nearly five years had passed. 

He hummed and he hummed, biting back at the cold as he passed from Hungary into Wallachia, where he at last found what he was looking for. 

He had spent the winter at an inn there, with a broken piano he had painstakingly fixed himself, and then played. Every night he played the Wendigo’s Medley, becoming a fixture and attraction in the place, making it a gem of the east. It was how he earned his keep. Occasionally he would beg coins for requests. He had a small collection hidden away in a small purse he wore, tucked beneath his shirts, at all times. 

And one night as Will Graham finished his playing and took to his wine and broth alone, in a dark corner, a man sat beside him. A Vlach with dark hooded eyes. 

"Where did you get that?" He asked in Aromanian, gruff and broken and Will Graham only cocked his head to the side and took another gulp of his wine. "That music?" Asked the man. "I only heard it once before." 

Will’s eyes widened. His heart raced. The wine turned to ash in his mouth. “Where?” He asked. 

"Lecter Castle." He said with a grin. "I was a servant there awhile." 

"Take me there." Demanded Will Graham.

"For a price." Returned the man.

Penniless and exhausted Will found himself at the gates of a grand stone castle with long windows like clouded eyes, being climbed in leaps and bounds by ivy. He stood at the gates of the Lithuanian castle awaiting them to open. And open they did. 

"State your business." Demanded the guard, dry, bored, and disinterested.

"My name is Will Graham." He said, his hands shaking as he took out the battered sheet music, which had arrived wrapped in blood red silk on his doorstep nearly six years ago in New Orleans. It would return home battered and bloodied, but with a new movement entitled ‘The Stag’ inscribed on it’s back. "And I have something for Hannibal Lecter." Will placed the sheet music in the man’s hand and watched as he re-entered the gate, it closing behind him. 

Will took a deep breath and looked at his guide. “You can go.” He said. 

"And where will you go, sir?" Asked the man and a large mischievous grin spread across his face, splitting his chapped lips and sending a rivulet of thick blood dripping down his chin. 

"In the opposite direction of whatever way you go. Now run!" And as the man headed west, Will sprinted east, the wind at his heels. 

————- 

Hannibal Lecter was in his study, the mangled corpse of a peasant twitching at his feet when a faint knocking sounded against the door. 

"Enter." He said as he crushed the whimpering man’s throat beneath his heel, blood burbling from his grey lips and staining his shoe. 

"Count," Said a quiet and respectful man, grey and nearly toothless. 

"Ažuolas." Hannibal greeted him, methodically cleaning his bloody hands with a handkerchief. 

"A man named Will Graham delivered this for you." 

Hannibal took the folded up paper from his hand, immediately recognizing it. He pressed it to his nose, images of the frail and beautiful pianist flashing behind his eyes as he inhaled the scent of his skin. 

"Where is he?" Hannibal asked, voice tight and heavy with impending danger. 

"He disappeared before we could—" Ažuolas stopped speaking as his immense anger shifted from him to the corpse on the floor. He watched, not daring to betray an ounce of expression, as his master ripped the innards out of the body with one hand, his sheets of music still held gingerly in the other. 

"Find him." He said quietly and his servant fled, ready to do his bidding. 

With cold blood drying on his fingers Hannibal locked the door to his study and sat at his harpsichord, opening up the ‘The Wendigo’s Medley’ and thumbing through it to find ‘The Stag’ penned on the back in chaotic jerks of ink. 

Breathless and with a deep pain in his chest, and the scent of the waifish pianist and blood thick in his nose, Hannibal Lecter began to play.


	2. Chapter 2

Their game of cat and mouse came to a decisive end. If Count Hannibal Lecter played by any rules other than his own, it might have extended indefinitely into the future, the pair of them, grey and toothless, stumbling sick and brittle after one another, riding the four winds captivated by ghosts. 

The Count could see the romance in the notion, as well as the struggle and ultimate pain in it’s execution. It played before his head like a dream, which he abruptly shook himself of. While he loved a good chase, and luring the object of his possession across the world had been imbued him with undeniable pleasure, he knew that richer pleasures yet awaited him. Awaited them. 

The pianist Will Graham was a rare beauty, of ecstatic talent, and The Count knew immediately upon seeing him that he was his. He had come to the new world only to explore it, and had spent roughly a year wandering from the hot and thick southern air to the frigid chill of the north. He had not anticipated Will Graham, and he had not anticipated his mad pursuit. 

The Count had not made it easy for the younger man, testing his mettle and resourcefulness at every turn, often even leaving false clues, pouring himself into further melodies, the pianist as his muse, even as he led him farther and farther into the depths of the old world. 

Even as The Count had men sent to every inn, market, and road within a day’s ride, the word put out to look for a man named Will Graham, placing a reward on the deliverer, he thought of it as a kindness. They could stop running. They could stay in his family castle. They could traverse the world. They could rest. Write together. 

The Count thought longingly of the large fireplace in his bedroom, spreading the younger man out beside it, the firelight licking at his skin as he took his own turn upon it, as it was his write to do. 

The Count had breathed in the dolor and mania, thick in Will Graham’s composition and performance. He wanted to bottle it for himself. He kept his old composition, as well as the new addition close to him as he waited, occasionally pressing it into his nose and deeply inhaling. It smelled of the world, of cold, of warmth, of spice, of, sweat, of tears, and the skin he so desperately coveted. 

\--------- 

Will Graham was walking again, he did not know where he was going or why, but the unbearable lightness he felt was new. It was now a new game, a different game they were now playing, in which it was Hannibal Lecter’s job to pursue him. Will could not imagine it lasting long. 

He was a lone man, once fairly wealthy, but not incredibly, who had exhausted his purse and reputation entirely. He had no resources whatsoever and Will could only imagine that Hannibal had every last one of his men out looking for him, even as he walked away. The thought warmed him. He knew that after the piece he had written him Hannibal would never let him go. 

With his heart warmed and his blood chilled by this thought he wandered on, the various warnings he had heard all over europe ringing in his ears. 

Old blood. Bad blood. Old blood. Bad blood. 

In Berlin they had shown him a corpse with the cheeks ripped away, cut down to the yellowed bone. 

“You’ve missed Count Lecter by a week.” They said. The ‘you’re lucky’ was silent, but Will heard it nonetheless. 

He was not sure if he agreed or disagreed. 

Wanting to flee the continent and run straight back to the castle at once, Will walked in a daze, knowing that as it stood he truly had nowhere to run. 

He walked until sunset, when a man on a horse dressed in red and black, shift embroidered with a black crowned snake, galloped in front of him, blocking his way. Will could see the man sizing him up, deciding if he fit the description he had been given. Will watched as the thoughts turned slowly in his head, the man’s eyes widening as he came to a realization. 

“Are you Will Graham?” Asked the man. 

Instead of looking him in the eyes Will chose to look at the black snake emblazoned across his chest. 

“Who is asking?” 

“I come on behalf of Count Lecter.” Said the man and Will wondered if the few hours lying would bring him were worth prolonging the wait to an obvious conclusion. 

“I am Will Graham.” 

“Then I need you to follow me.” Said the man and Will nodded, watching as the man turned his horse. “Come with me, Sir.” He said and Will fell into step beside the slow trot of his horse, his heart pounding in his chest.

**Author's Note:**

> prompt given by detectivewillgrahamcracker 
> 
> you can find me on tumblr at imaginehanniballecter


End file.
